Due to a question about RSS Feeds I decided to write a quick post about it.  When you arrive on any particular blog and you like the content that it contains, you may want to get updates about that blog without having to visit it all the time to see if new content was added.

There are a multitude of RSS readers out there and as far as I know, all you have to do it copy and paste the rss feed page url into your reader.  If you click my orange subscribe button on this page you will see my rss feeds page.  Copy and paste the url of the feed page in your rss feeder and presto, you will get all new content from now on automatically.

If you want to know how to get people to come back to your blog, then let me suggest to you that you begin to interact with the people who leave comments on your blog.  Many people go and leave comments on blogs just to promote their products and get backlinks to their own website.

Remember guys, Alex Jeffreys warned to “Not Pimp Your Sh-t!”  People who read your comments can tell if you are trying to sell to them or not so just don’t do it.  If you are offering real value when commenting on other people’s blogs it will pay off over time.

As I strive to make my online business a success, I find that the tools you use will help determine that success.  Many people online use a variety of services for their business and as I come across successful websites, I take the time to see what tools and services they use so that I can eventually duplicate their success.

Below you will find essential tools that I use to create products for my online business.  You may use some of the same tools or you may have something else that works better.  I am always open to new suggestions so your comments will be appreciated.

If you are anything like me, then during your trek to earn money online you have no doubt amassed a collection of private label rights or master resell rights products on your hard drive.  The question I have for you is, “Did you buy them to resell or did you buy them to use?” 

For me it was to resell but just like many of you, I never got around to selling much of anything let alone even using the products I purchased.  As I finally take a serious look at my online business and how I am running it, I have realized that I have a massive amount of wealth on my hard drive.

As we go through this coaching with Alex Jeffreys, I can’t help but wonder how in the world am I going so fast through this process.  I am completely grateful to Alex for his coaching and motivation to help me succeed in all of the places where I failed before.

Alex has asked his students to make a YouTube video telling people what they have learned and  to make it interesting he is offering an incentive to make the video.  So I downloaded the free trial of Camtasia 6 which I am going to purchase anyways, and captured myself doing a PowerPoint presentation.

I have noticed that when I focus on writing content for my blog, that is all i end up with.  What good is the content if there are no visitors to read them and comment on them.  Isn’t that why we started a blog for anyways?

I have also seen a sharp drop in visits to my blog when I stop visiting and commenting on other peoples blogs.  So I have decided that I need to do two very important things in order to make my own blog effective and social.

• Provide Valuable Content

As I try to generate more traffic to my blog, I find that there are really a ton of different ways to do this.  On this very day as I was trying to install some necessary widgets on my sidebar, I had an idea.  What if there was a way to have my blog posts in a widget that someone could then put on their website?

As I searched in Google, I came across Widgetbox.com.  In about half an hour I came up with this little widget that shows my most recent posts and has links directly to the post embedded in the widget.  Also I have a logo at the top that links to my blog.

Alex Jeffreys challenged us to see who could come up with the most traffic from December 17th until January 3rd.  Obviously I did not do as well as other students have done but I am going to post my results anyways.  After adding Google Analytics to my blog I was able to see each and every day how much traffic comes to my blog and here is what I’ve got.

My Traffic Results From Dec 17th 08 to Jan 03rd 09

Hey, Michael Ottman here with another graphics lesson for you. I was surfing Alex’s students blogs and came across yet another awesome site. Bill Vannot has a simple design and his blog is easy on the eyes. I definitely do not need to help him with his graphic for his free report.

In fact it is pretty awesome. There is however just one mistake that is all too common when it comes to putting graphics on blogs and websites. To the left is his awesome report cover. The dimensions are 238 x 300.

As I sort through the blogs of Alex Jeffreys students, I consistently come across graphics of ebooks, reports and others that are simply “non professional” looking. I see such great looking blogs with fabulous content but the graphics to some of these great blogs scream either “amature” or “cheap”.

I do not intend on being rude but rather intend to do my part to help others who have neither the resources, money or both to produce the kind of graphics that make people want to buy or click a link. For those of you who don’t know, I’ve started offering my services free to get Alex’s students a little boost for their blogs and to get my name out there.